


Three Houses

by frogy



Category: You Could Make a Life Series - Taylor Fitzpatrick
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:53:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: Eventually, David and Jake own three houses between them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_spruce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_spruce/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Betas are magic. Thanks for fixing all my mistakes.

———

2016

———

David and Jake play each other once more that season. For the Panthers, it’s the second night of a back-to-back at home. The Capitals have had the day before the game off. David is sure there’s some reason that the day was spent in Tampa and not Sunrise, bus call at 6pm, so that they get into Sunrise just in time for curfew. 

Robbie doesn’t give whoever schedules their travel details the benefit of the doubt, complaining on David’s behalf that it sucks, even while they sit on the beach. Robbie doesn’t look like he’s suffering, sunglasses and swim trunks on as he melts into his deck chair. Robbie even brought his own sunscreen this time, SPF 15, to get David off his back. A second ago Robbie was pointing out a hot guy with a dog, but David agrees easy. He’d rather be in Sunrise.

He could have used a second night there. As it stands, he has to turn down a dinner invite from Kiro because he already promised Jake that he’d hang out after the game.

David catches the highlights from the night before on TV when he’s getting ready for bed. Jake had a really fucking pretty goal. It’s unfair. David really doesn’t have time to think about that now. He texts Jake, _Good goal tonight_.

_Thnx c u tmrw,_ David gets back a second later, followed by a string of smiley faces, the ones where you can see all the teeth. 

The game is an afternoon game, Saturday not meaning anything to David’s schedule, but it’s billed as “Family Day” for people with normal nine-to-fives to bring their kids. If they’re trying to get kids into hockey, this isn’t the game for it. It’s a lackluster showing from both teams, their bodies more accustomed to being mid-nap at this time of day. Gally scores early in the first. Salon answers, two minutes later. They get a second goal with a minute left in the first, and then the score holds for the rest of the game. David doesn't get any points, but neither does Jake.

David passes Kiro and Robbie in the hallway outside the visitors’ dressing room, and he’s glad none of them stop to ask about where he’s headed. He knows that they both know, but knowing in general is different than knowing the details. David keeps his eyes down, doesn’t make eye contact. He needs all his concentration for his phone, anyway, to try and make sense of the barely legible instructions Jake texted him, on how to get to the team parking lot from the visitors’ dressing room.

When he gets there, he’s surprised to see Jake’s old car he remembers from summers long past standing in the parking lot. He says as much, running his hand along the dashboard. Those summers feel like a lifetime ago, and sitting in the passenger seat of Jake’s car feels similarly like a dream – one where he wakes up in need of a long shower before he can start his day.

“This car was my first paycheck,” Jake explains, when David asks about it. “It’s my baby, you know.” David doesn’t. The car doesn’t look like anything special, not that he’d necessarily notice. He doesn’t drive. But Eisler had come to the rink with a new BMW each season, talking about having the finest of German engineering. This car is nothing like that. And David’s first paycheck just went into the bank. He didn’t buy anything in particular with it; a percentage went to Dave, some of it probably to grocery delivery, and he remembers needing new suits when he started out, but he doesn’t know which ones would have been first, or even if he still has them.

The house that Jake pulls up to is definitely not familiar to David. It’s a tan single-story house with red Spanish-style roof tiles. "This is new," David says, getting out of the car.

“Yeah," Jake shrugs, like it’s not a big deal. "I bought it when I re-signed.”

“Oh.” That was three years ago. In all that time, David didn’t know that Jake had bought a house. Not that Jake would have had a reason to mention it, now that they’re talking again. It was not new to him, after all. David follows Jake up the walkway, looking around at the spindly tropical trees in Jake’s yard, thinking about Jake living here. When he thinks about Jake on the other end of his texts, he always vaguely imagines the Toronto apartment, even though that’s totally irrational. That wasn’t even _Jake’s_ apartment. 

Jake unlocks the door and lets David in. “Do you want a tour?” 

This is Jake’s house. He’s got a pile of shoes next to the door, into which he quickly kicks the ones he’s wearing. He’s not wearing his suit jacket or tie, both having been abandoned in his car, and Jake’s sleeves are rolled up.David can follow the line of his strong forearms to his big hands. 

Nothing about Jake is fair.

“Can I see your bedroom?”

“David,” Jake says, voice unreadable, a second before he kisses him. 

Jake puts those big hands on David’s shoulders, and David’s hands come up to Jake’s sides, the crisp fabric of his dress shirt doing nothing to obscure how good his body feels beneath it. David lets Jake use his size to his advantage and lets himself be pushed against the front door. And it is so good to have this, Jake’s mouth kissing his, their bodies pressed together.

Forget the bedroom; here in Jake’s foyer is fine. David doesn’t want to think or wait. He just needs Jake to take half a step back so he can get to his knees, so he can get Jake out of his suit pants.

David pushes and Jake goes where David wants him to go. David fumbles, undoing Jake’s dress pants until Jake gets them far enough down that David can get to Jake’s cock.

Jake is hard in his mouth, thighs trembling under his hands. Jake’s hands find David’s shoulders again. David can feel the careful way Jake’s not pushing for more, fingers involuntarily clutching, digging into David’s shoulders but never pulling. It’s infuriating, the way Jake is holding back like David can’t handle it. 

David wants what Jake wants, wants more, doesn’t want Jake to hold back. If Jake trains with him this summer, they can train at this too, he thinks, slightly hysterical  
For now, David pushes himself to take as much of Jake as he can, works his mouth on him as Jake mumbles ‘fuck’ and ‘David,’ in a gratifying way.

Jake does move a hand into David’s hair to push him back with a warning when he comes. David still gets a mouthful, and some on his face, the corner of his mouth, his chin. It’s messy and gross and he doesn’t particularly like swallowing, but it would be unbearably rude to spit it out on the floor of Jake’s foyer, so he does. Jake is breathing heavy above him, and when David looks up, Jake is staring intently down at him. 

Jake’s face is a lot, so David looks away, rests his forehead carefully on Jake’s hip, not worrying about whether he’s transferring Jake’s come back on to him. This is his house. If David messes up Jake’s pants, Jake can just change into new ones. 

"I have a bedroom," Jake pants out, "or like, a couch, right there." He gestures behind him into a living room. David peers around Jake and yeah, there’s whole other rooms in this house that David didn't bother to notice before. "Get up," Jake says, tugging on David's hand. "That's got to be killing your knees. I'll blow you on the couch,” Jake adds, kicking off his pants and underwear.

David goes. He spreads out on the couch lengthwise, head resting against an armrest, wrestling his pants off so he has one leg pushed against the couch back, the other over the side so his foot is resting on the floor. Jake kneels on the couch between David’s sprawled legs, shirt still on but riding up as he bends over so David can see the top of his bare ass. Jake takes David in hand, mouth nuzzling at the base of his cock, suckling at his balls.

David wants to tell Jake, all this work isn’t necessary, to just get on with it. He’s been ready to go for what seems like forever, since he caught Jake’s goal on last night’s replays. David has no compunctions about grabbing Jake’s head, tugging until Jake finally gets on with it. David holds on while Jake blows him, focusses on how the buzzed sides of Jake’s hair are fuzzy under his palms, tries to make it last, because it has to last him until the offseason.

But Jake is too good, or maybe David’s just too desperate for him, because he can’t hold out any longer. When Jake swallows, he makes sounds like it’s a delicacy. It’s hypocritical to enjoy the sounds Jake makes so much, when David would gladly never swallow again, but he likes it so much. And he likes it when Jake lays down on top of him, bigger than him, heavy and warm. 

David almost falls asleep like this, at least until Jake starts talking, quietly and conspiratorially when he says, “I am going to spend the rest of the season jerking off to this, having you here in my house.”

There’s something about being together, Jake’s voice so close like when David has the phone pressed tight to his ear– but now it’s accompanied by the feel of Jake’s chest rumbling when he talks, Jake’s breath against his ear– that makes David say, “Same.”

“Really?”

He feels himself turning red, mortification catching up with him. “Yes,” David says. So much for that nap. 

David had been so busy missing Jake as a person, David somehow forgot all the other things there were to miss about him. Now that David had the misspelled texts and never-ending heart-eye emojis back, David is free to miss blowjobs and the way he would run his fingers through David’s hair while they watched a movie together. 

Or maybe remembering isn’t the right word for that, since even trying his hardest, sometimes David couldn’t keep himself from thinking about the blowjobs. Now he’s free to think about them in the shower without a crushing feeling of shame and embarrassment following him through the day.

“I’ll be thinking about that too,” Jake says.

David really is starting to feel sticky and gross, so it’s only partially because he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, that he says, “I want go clean up, where’s your bathroom?”

“Oh, okay,” Jake says, getting off of David. “If you want, you can hang your suit up in my room and borrow sweats for while you hang out.”

David agrees and follows Jake through his house to his bedroom.

“Bathroom’s in there, closet’s that one.” Jake points at two doors, before starting to unbutton his own shirt. David doesn’t move toward either of them, watching Jake get the rest of the way undressed.

Jake notices David watching and smirks. David looks down quickly, embarrassed at being caught looking, even though he knows Jake doesn’t care, likes it even. “You can grab a hanger from the closet, help yourself to anything in here,” Jake says pulling out a t-shirt and sweats for himself.

“Thanks,” David says again, retreating to the bathroom.

Jake’s not in his room when David comes out, and without him to distract, David makes quick work of hanging up his suit and finding something of Jake’s to throw on.

Jake is back downstairs in the kitchen, two giant bowls with baby spinach in the bottom in the middle of his kitchen island,an assortment of tupperware with other salad fixings surrounding them. “I was starving and figured you must be too. I can do tuna or steak in the salads, what do you want?”

“Either is fine,” David says. He scarfed down some protein bars at the arena before he left, because he wasn’t sure if he and Jake would get around to eating, but he’s hungry enough to eat again. 

He definitely wasn’t expecting Jake to cook for him, figured if anything maybe they’d order in. David can cook because he needs to feed himself, but it’s nothing special, and it’s definitely not something he wants to do for other people, the way Jake always seems to want to feed him, when they’re together.

“That’s not helpful,” Jake says.

“Um, steak then, I guess.” He really doesn’t care, but Robbie dragged him out for seafood last night.

“Good,” Jake says, putting one of the tupperware back in the fridge. He opens another one and dumps half of the thin-sliced steak into each bowl. Jake has a fancy stove in his kitchen, a grill thing in-between the burners that looks like the top of a barbeque. There are two bar stools at the island, and David sits down on one of them, while Jake assembles the salads across from him.

They’re quiet while Jake works, but it’s the comfortable kind of quiet. When Jake’s done, he slides one of the bowls across the table to David, walking his own around to sit in the stool next to him. Jake scoots his stool close to David’s and rests his foot on the rung of David’s stool between David’s own. David lets him, lets their ankles knock together as they eat.

Both their phones go off at the same time.

“Volkie,” Jake says.

“Kiro,” David agrees, and he’s only a little afraid of whatever Kiro feels they both needed to get on a group text.

It’s a picture of him and Robbie and two massive steaks. _you jealous youre not out with us,_ the caption says.

David’s really not. He takes a picture of his bowl and texts it back.

_that not steak that salad_

_there’s steak in it_

Jake’s phone is buzzing in his hand while Kiro and David text back and forth on the group thread.

“We could have gone out with them, if you wanted,” Jake says. 

“I want to be here,” David says.

Jake frowns, “I don’t want to keep you from your friends.”

“Maybe next time,” David says. He sees enough of Robbie, but he doesn’t want to go a whole season without seeing Kiro. “I want to be able to be with you.”

“Kiro and Robbie know, though, right?” Jake says. “You said you told them.”

“Yeah,” David says. “Robbie has been giving me such shit about—” David pauses realized he’s backed himself into a corner here “—about how I’m getting laid this trip.”

David’s been told he has a pretty good poker face, so he’s not sure what his face did at Robbie’s escalating teasing. But whatever it was, it was was enough that Robbie felt it necessary to apologize. 

David’s mostly been ignoring Kiro every time he mentions it, but David hasn’t called him out to make him stop. Kiro saw David at his worst pining, he deserves to be able to needle David about his happiness, even if David is totally incapable of responding in any sort of normal human fashion. 

“Well, he wasn’t wrong,” Jake says, considering.

“But knowing is different than seeing it. And we couldn’t be like this in public.”

“You mean I can’t do this if they were here?” Jake kisses David. It starts quick, light, a peck and then another, and then longer and slower, and when Jake licks at David’s lower lip David can’t help but open his mouth to it.

“I thought you were hungry,” David says, when they break apart.

David looks at Jake’s bowl. Jake’s eaten most of the steak out of it, leaving himself a pile of spinach and assorted vegetables. “The rest of the food can wait until you’re gone,” Jake says “This can’t.”

They leave the food where it’s sitting on Jake’s breakfast bar by silent agreement, heading back to his bedroom, taking the slow route, the one where they keep stopping to kiss their way down the hall.

“See, it’s good we’re not hanging out with anyone else.”

“Yeah,” Jake agrees before kissing him again. “None of that when Kiro is around.”

“Yeah.”

———

2018

———

When they tell David he’s cleared to leave, David buys a ticket for the next flight to Detroit. He opens his messages with Jake. The last few are all from Jake; _sorry,_ and _sucks,_ and _call me when your reddy to talk,_ and _com to my lake hous well go fishing,_ and then an address.

If Jake had called, David would have talked to him. David can’t decide if he’s glad Jake gave him the out, or not.

The next available flight is entirely too early. When it comes, David on autopilot as his alarm rings before the sun is up to get a car to Regan, but the offseason means getting to be with Jake, and waiting even a few extra hours seemed too long.

He flies into Detroit without the walking boot he was stuck with for the end of the season. It was a shitty end, watching the team flame out in the second round while there was nothing he could do about it. If they had made it just a few more games, another round, he could have played, maybe. The playoffs were worth the rush back to the ice. Instead, he’s been sent on his way with instructions to enjoy the next few weeks relaxing, and to check in again mid-month, for the real clearance to begin his summer training. As though David could enjoy anything when someone else would be winning the cup.

He gives himself the length of the flight to get over it. Jake’s season was objectively worse, no Olympic medal and no playoffs at all for the Panthers. There was nothing going right for them, but goaltending was going particularly wrong. Jake’s re-signed his contract without limit and a no-move clause, but Jake was worried about who they would give up to get a new goalie. 

Jake loves his team even when they’re losing in a way David never learned how to do.

David gets a cab at DTW. Maybe Jake would have given him a ride, but David didn’t ask.

Instead, a cab deposits David at the end of a short driveway leading up to a two story cabin, covered in wooden shingles, surrounded by pine trees. David walks up the driveway looking around. When David’s standing right outside Jake’s front door, he pulls out his phone.

_Open your door._

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the door opens, and there’s Jake, bed-headed and bleary-eyed. He’s in boxers and an old Panther’s t-shirt. The shirt showing its age in both the old jumping cat logo and in the way it’s worn thin, neckline stretched and pulled out of shape.

“David,” Jake rubs his eyes like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“Surprise,” David says, stepping inside and letting the door close behind him. David vaguely registers that the cabin theme carries on inside, with bright wood paneled walls. But it’s a distant thing beside seeing Jake in person again.

“How did you get here?” Jake asks.

“I took a car from the airport,” David answers quickly. He wants to move past the confused small talk. This isn’t what he’s here for.

“I would have picked you up,” Jake says.

“I didn’t want to talk.” It should go without saying, what it is he wants. 

“David,” Jake says David’s name like no one else, like something huge and unfathomable and so much more than what David’s asking for– deserves. 

Jake’s hands go to David’s waistband, undoing the fly on his shorts, pushing them down. David takes off his shirt. Jake drops to his knees; and this, this is why David’s here. 

It’s not hockey. It’s not playing hockey or talking about hockey or thinking about hockey. It’s unrealistic to expect the cup every year. And yet, the crushing sense of defeat at every end has only gotten worse now that he knows the alternative. The high of Olympic gold which couldn’t be tarnished by a sudden increase in media requests coming through to Dave, ended abruptly. David has missed games before, because the season is long and hard on your body, but never for anything like this; a long, sustained nothing, because his body wasn’t ready for anything else yet. 

His body isn’t the problem now. Jake is lighting him up, mouth hot and wet and insistent on his cock, hands gripping his thighs. And he’s not thinking about anything other than the way Jake’s efforts have him shivering with pleasure, the feeling of ecstasy sparking out from where Jake is blowing him to all the unrelated parts of him, from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers and toes. 

If David could get words together, he’d tell Jake to slow down. He wants to stay here, in this place where everything feels so good that when he’s not right here, David almost can’t believe this is real.

But David doesn’t say anything and Jake doesn’t slow down. So David comes, panting against the wall just inside the front door of Jake’s summer cabin.

Jake stands up and David moves to return the favor. But Jake stops him before he can go to his knees, grabbing David’s hand and moving it to his dick. “Just like this.” Jake has no problem articulating what he wants. David collects the precome at the head of Jake’s cock, slicking his hand with it, before tightening his hand and setting a quick pace to jack-off Jake. 

“Yeah,” Jake says, dropping his head onto David’s shoulder. “Like that, babe. I’ll be quick,”

David is as quiet as Jake is chatty, keeping up a steady stream of dirty encouragement against the crook of David’s neck. David watches the way the pink head of Jake’s cock emerges from his fist on every downstroke, and even having just come, the sight makes him want more. 

Jake isn’t lying about how close he is, and Jake coming in his hand is an even better sight.

“Thanks,” David says, now that Jake’s gone quiet.

“I think that’s my line.” Jake’s voice is still shaky with orgasm. He pulls his head up, off of where he was resting against David’s shoulder, so he can meet David’s eyes. “You’re really here?”

“Yeah,” David says. Jake’s gaze is intense and David can only hold it for a moment before he needs to look away. He should have called before showing up. Jake steps back and David looks down at his hand which sticky with Jake’s come. 

“Here.” Jake hands over his boxers to clean up with.

“Thanks,” David wipes off his hand and gets his clothes righted. They’re barely past the front door and Jake is just standing there in only a t-shirt, bottom half bared. “So how many houses do you actually have?”

“Just the two,” Jake says. “Do you want the tour?”

David does, but– “Maybe just the bedroom for now.”

Jake leads him through the house, to the second floor where he explains that all the bedrooms have en-suites, because it would have been too weird not give his parents the master if the house only had one.

David doesn’t particularly care about any, beyond the one at the end of the hallway Jake leads him to. The sheets are still rumpled where Jake must have been sleeping before David showed up. Jake points out the aforementioned en-suite and lets David retreat there.

The large shower is tempting. David could let the water wash away this slow, sleepy feeling. Jake had been excited to teach him how to fish. But he yawns, and thinks washing his hand is enough. The fish will still be there tomorrow.

Jake is in clean boxers when David comes out of the bathroom. “Do you mind if we nap?” David asks. “My flight was really early.”

“Sure,” Jake says. “I’m just going to go brush my teeth first.”

“Okay.” David takes off his clothes, climbing into Jake’s bed opposite from the rumpled sheets. He’s making his own David’ shaped rumple. David likes that thought, leaving the impression of the two of them in bed together.

The sun is streaming in through the windows, the lake visible beyond the tall evergreen trees surrounding them, but David’s warm and sated and he’s been up since forever and then he’s asleep before Jake joins him again.

When David wakes up again, Jake is already awake and sitting next to him on bed, doing something on his iPad.

“Good morning,” Jake says, when he notices David blinking up at him.

“Is it still?” It feels later than that. The light from the windows has changed.

“No, it’s about two,” Jake says.

David did sleep a while. He feels good now, well rested. “Should we get up? We can still go fishing or something.”

“You got to go really early in the morning if you want to catch anything,” Jake says, shrugging. “The fish bite best in the morning.” He doesn’t seem upset to have missed their window for the day, which is good. 

“Oh.” David doesn’t care about going out on the lake, but Jake’s been raving about his summer place for ages. “So what do you want to do today?”

Jake puts his tablet down on the bedside table next to him. “Do you want to fuck?”

“Yes.” David does, always. 

They don’t get out of bed for a while. 

Later, David knows he was right. Jake’s bed looks good rumpled for two.

The next morning, for the second day in a row, David’s alarm rings before the sunrise.

It’s early and David doesn’t like it. No fish can be worth this. 

Jake is bustling around, prodding David along while packing up a cooler and getting the stuff for fishing sorted out in the mud room. David follows Jake’s instructions without much thought, and when they’re ready to go, he takes the two thermoses of coffee Jake hands him while Jake loads up the boat. David is glad Jake is the one that knows what he’s doing, because David, helped by the coffee, is just finally waking up, blinking sleep from his eyes as Jake pulls them away from the dock.

When Jake notices him waking up, Jake points him to the cooler. It’s stocked with beer and enough sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. None of the sandwiches seem particularly breakfasty, so David takes what looks like roast beef. He offers one to Jake, but Jake waves him off, hands full with getting them going. So David digs in. 

At some point, they reach wherever they’re going and Jake stops the engine, swapping out the helm for his cell phone, and making a call that David can’t follow from Jake’s end.

When Jake hangs up, David asks “Who were you talking to?”

“Half the lake belongs to your people. We have to call the boat into border patrol. I pre-registered at the beginning of the summer, but sometimes the border patrol will come by to spot check anyway.”

“Really?” David’s used to going through passport control in airports, but how does it work in a boat? Everything he knows about boarding another boat, he learned about watching Pirates of the Caribbean on a bus in juniors. They watched the english version with french subtitles rather than the french version with english subtitles, so he could actually follow.

“I wouldn’t be shocked if they ‘randomly’ want to meet hockey star David Chapman.” 

“Oh.”

“So, fishing,” Jake says, moving on.

David sticks his empty thermos and the parchment paper his sandwich was wrapped in back in the cooler and moves over to where Jake is. Jake shows David how to put on the bait and cast their lines.

“Now what?” David asks.

“Now we hang out and wait,” Jake says.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” Jake grabs his own breakfast sandwich from the cooler. Then he cracks open a beer for each of them. “Here,” Jake says handing over a lager for David.

“This seems too easy,” David says, taking the beer. It’s too early for him to want to be drinking, but Jake already opened it, so David drinks.

“How did you think fishing worked?”

David’s not sure what he expected, but being on the boat is nice. It was already sticky hot when David left Washington, needing to run his AC all night to be able to sleep. It’s not like that here. 

Between the early hour and the breeze on the water, David is glad he threw a fleece on over his board shorts and t-shirt, even though he expects to be swapping it out for a thick layer of sunscreen later on.

It’s weird to be out with Jake without having to worry about other people seeing them. It’s not exactly private, but it’s not public either. They’re all alone on the boat, and they are going to have plenty of warning if anyone else comes by. So it’s easy to sit closer than David would normally in public. And he doesn’t pull away when Jake starts playing footsy with him.

Jake seems to know David doesn’t want to talk about hockey without David having to say it. Or maybe Jake just doesn’t want to talk about it. Instead Jake talks about the cabin. 

He’s had it about as long as he’s had the one in Sunrise, and David’s just as impressed at this one as he was about the Sunrise house. A house is a big thing to buy.

Jake explains that this house is as much his family’s as it is his. His parents and Nat and Allie use it as much as he does, even when he’s not here.

“Nat and Allie are coming up this weekend too,” Jake says. “So we’ve only got the place to ourselves until Friday.”

“Okay,” David says.

“Nat wanted to bring her boyfriend, but I figured you’d be coming up sometime this week so I said it wasn’t a good weekend for it.”

“Okay,” David says again. “Thanks,” because he’s not sure what else he can say. Jake just finished explaining that this was as much their house as Jake’s, and David doesn’t want to be the one keeping them from using their own house. But he’s not sure what he would do if a stranger where there, how he could be in the same house as Jake but make himself sleep in another room.

“No problem,” Jake says. “But I have a good feeling about him. I think he’s going to stick around, so think about what you want to tell him eventually. I can’t uninvite him from Christmas or whatever.”

“Okay,” David says again. He’ll think about it.

Thinking can wait for later though, because now there’s another boat pulling up next to them. It’s larger than Jake’s boat, and has both Canadian and US flags flying on it.

“That’s our random border patrol check,” Jake says.

The other boat is calling down permission to board. Jake gives it, and helps them get the two boats tethered together and a plank laid down to connect them. David decides he would be most helpful by staying out of the way.

The two officers that come aboard identify themselves as Windsor police and ask to see their passports. David has a moment of panic because did he bring his passport out with them? He doesn’t remember what Jake made him pack this morning in his mostly still asleep fog. But passports were one of those things, since Jake goes to their stuff and pulls them out, no problem, handing them over to the officers.

The guy looking at them does that intense scrutinization thing all passport control has down pat, as though the fact that people don’t look exactly like their passport photos at all times is a personal affront to him.

“I’d ask if you were _that_ David Chapman, but I guess your shirt gives it away,” the officer in charge says.

David looks down at what he’s wearing. It’s a black, zip-up fleece with, oh yeah, a small team Canada red maple leaf on the breast. “Yes, I am that David Chapman,” David says.

The officer holds out his hand for a handshake. “Congratulations. You were great at PyeongChang.”

“Thank you,” David says, shaking the first guy’s hand, and then the other.

“What are you doing on our waters?” the second officer asks.

David’s not sure if this is part of his official border patrol questioning or if the officers are just excited to make small talk with him. “I’m teaching Chaps how to fish,” Jake answers.

“You left out of Michigan?”

“Yeah, I have a place there,” Jake answers, which leads to them arguing the merits which waters have the better fishing. David is happy to let Jake take over that conversation, going to stow their passports away again for safe-keeping when the officer hands them back.

It’s then that David notices one of the lines is no longer sitting inert propped against the railing. The line is pulled taught, the pole curved towards the water from whatever’s pulling at the end.

“Guys,” David says, interrupting Jake and the officers. “I think we have a fish.”

“Grab the rod,” Jake says, giving instructions as David works to reel it in. All three of them move towards where David is standing. There is more resistance than David was expecting, and he has to plant his feet against the fish pulling in the other direction, as he reels it in. 

The junior officer is closest, and as the fish finally flies out of the water the guy grabs for it. The officer knows more than David about what he’s doing, making quick work of taking it off the hook, even as the fish flops around.

“Here,” the guy says, handing it to David once it’s free. 

David doesn’t know anything about the catch, but Jake gets a look at it and proclaims it the start of dinner, so it must be a good catch.

“We should get a picture,” the officer who helped with the fish says.

“Sure,” David says. The officer is already wiping his hands on his pants and pulling out his phone. “Do you want to be in it too?” David asks the other officer.

Yes, he does and David stands between the two of them, holding out the fish, while Jake takes the photos on both the officers’ phones. The two officers bid their farewells shortly after that, Jake putting the fish on ice before helping them unhitch their boat, leaving Jake and David to it.

“So, what do you think?” Jake asks.

“About what?”

“You going to get a house on the Canadian side of the border like your fan club suggested?”

“No,” David says.

“We could boat across to see each other. No car needed.”

David took a driving class last off-season only to discover that driving is exactly as terrible as he expected it to be. He vaguely planned to keep it up over the season just to say he did it, but then he got busy. “I’m not totally sold on this boat thing either if we’re going to have to have visitors every time.”

“Nah, we should be okay. There’s only so many times they can randomly check the same boat. All the other officers are going to be jealous of the one who got to help Canadian Hockey Hero David Chapman catch a fish.”

“Asshole,” David says, but he’s laughing as he says it.

Jake laughs with him. But he’s right. The rest of the day is nice. They catch three more fish in rapid succession before it gets to be late enough in the day that Jake says not to expect any more. 

By then it’s hot enough to lose their jackets, and fishing becomes lounging in the sun with beers and sandwiches. They eat lunch sitting next to each other on the bench along the side of the boat, sprawled out so their legs are pressed together from their thighs all the way down, Jake’s foot hooked around David’s ankle. It’s nice.

They see some other boats, but no one gets close enough to see them or bother them. And it’s late afternoon before Jake suggests they head back.

That night, while Jake grills their fish, and David hangs out with him, David gets a text from Dave, _Nice fish._ and a link.

It looks like the officers posted the photos to social media. David thinks he looks dumb in the photo, skeptical of the whole thing. Hopefully it comes across as skeptical of the fish he’s holding, which was colder and slimier than he expected, and not of being ambushed by some of Windsor’s Finest for a fan photo. David shows Jake the photo.

“Cute,” is Jake’s verdict on it, but Jake is biased.

Dave will be more honest about it, and if he’s texting rather than emailing he has something to say. David wanders back towards the house to respond. _Sorry,_ David sends back.

_Nothing to apologize for. It’s the off-season. You’re relaxing and meeting some good Canadian fans,_ Dave sends in quick succession, one sentence per text.

_Hanging out with Jake?_ David sends back.

His phone rings in his hand. It’s Dave.

“Hi,” David answers it.

“You don’t have to apologize. Jake wasn’t even in the photos.” 

“He volunteered to take them,” David says.

“It’s a good photo,” Dave says, ignoring David’s point. “It’s good for people to see you being a regular guy.”

“So what did you text me for?” David asks. If not to scold David for being too public, there must be some other reason. Dave doesn’t text David just to chat.

It turns out the photo really isn’t a problem. Dave wants to re-tweet it to David’s account, which is usually nothing but team promos. David consents, because Dave knows best. They make vague plans to get dinner when David is in New York, to be confirmed over email, before getting off the phone. 

When the call is over, David wanders back over to Jake, who’s taking the fish off the grill now. They bring it inside to eat, Jake warning David of the mosquitoes that come out at this time of night. Jake leads them passed the kitchen and dining room tables to eat on the couch. 

The fish is good. 

Being at the cabin with Jake is good, relaxing, easier than David thinks it would be. “Ask me again at your Thanksgiving.” At Jake’s questioning look, David adds, “about Nat’s boyfriend. If they’re still a thing, we can figure out how to tell him.

“I’ll ask at Thanksgiving.”

“Good,” David says.

“Good,” Jake confirms. 

———

2020

———

“Have you already bought tickets to New York?” David asks Jake when they talk that night.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “I can’t wait to see you.”

David feels the same. It’s been too long since they’ve played the Panthers. That’s not why he mentioned it. “I think I’m going to have to be in DC that week. It looks like that’s when I’m going to be closing on the house.”

This is the second time the closing has been pushed back. Someone should really have told David how much work buying a house is. But no, Dave and Oleg and even Jake were all encouraging about how good of an idea it was, how it’s a good investment since he’s signing for another six years in Washington, how much he’ll like having a place of his own.

David knows Dave’s commission pays all of Dave’s assistants’ salary, but he feels like he owes them a fruit basket for all the times he has had to call and ask Dave to send one of them down to be there for a walkthrough or inspection or whatever while he’s traveling with the team. At least they’re getting frequent flier miles out of it.

“Should I see if I can change my tickets?” Jake asks. “Come to DC instead?”

“Sure, if you want. If it’s not too much trouble,” David says. David doesn’t want to make Jake go through the trouble if the airline is going to charge him an arm and a leg for it. But it’s not a hard no, so David knows Jake will be there.

His boyfriend is coming to visit him at his house.

David can’t wait.

Jake flies in the day after the closing, after all of David’s furniture and boxes of stuff are moved in. There’s a lot less of it, now that he has so many more rooms to put it in.

David unpacking the kitchen, well, at least trying. That’s important if he and Jake want to be able to eat here. Jake has sworn he doesn’t need David to take a cab out to Ronald Regan just to turn around and take a cab back together. It would be a waste of David’s time. But David is too distracted with anticipation to get much unpacking done. 

Finally, finally, there’s a knock on his door. He abandons the open boxes in the kitchen to run to his door. There’s no one in here yet, to judge him for it. He throws open the door.

And there’s Jake. “Hi.”

Jake is smiling. He looks good. “Hello, homeowner.”

David lets Jake in, closes the door behind him, let’s Jake put his bag down. That’s as long as David’s willing to wait, before he kisses him.

Jake meets him halfway. not wasting time on slow or gentle. It’s all consuming, a prelude to so much more to come. “Congrats, homeowner,” Jake says, when they break. Jake feels good against him. Big and warm and here in David’s house. This sort of happiness is usually reserved for game winning goals. They’ve done this in every apartment David’s lived in, in hotel rooms and both of Jake’s houses. 

“What do you want?” Jake asks.

“Blow me,” the words tumble out of David’s mouth, as much a surprise to him as to Jake, who is beaming at him.

“One blowjob, coming right up,” Jake says dropping to his knees.

Jake is so good at this, it’s a little unfair. David’s barely got a half-chub when Jake pulls his pants down, but that changes quickly when Jake gets his mouth on the head of David’s cock, sucking it in, running his tongue around the foreskin. David always thinks this will be the time he can hold off on coming so soon. But it’s been so long since he’s had this and his best intentions are nothing in the face of Jake’s enthusiasm. 

If he wants to hold off on coming, David should close his eyes or look away, but this is too good to miss out on. It might be David’s favorite view of Jake. Jake looks reverent, eyes closed, the sweep of his eyelashes long from this angle, and mouth stretched and red. David knows that will linger, Jake’s mouth showing what he did for David later when David shows him around, when they order dinner, when they finally find themselves back in bed tonight.

David reaches down to feel it, run his thumb along where Jake’s upper lip is stretched around his cock. Jake blinks up at him, pushes himself further down on David’s cock, makes himself that much more open and takes David’s thumb into his mouth too, pressed hot and wet alongside his cock, Jake drooling and gagging on it.

He reaches down unthinkingly with his other hand finding the side of Jake’s face. Jake stops his up and down motion, sucking to hollow out his cheeks and David can feel it, the shape of his cock in Jake’s mouth. And he can feel it the other way too, feels the pressure of his hand pressing on Jake’s cheek in his cock. He doesn’t realize he’s groaning until Jake makes a corresponding sound, a moan that’s more of an attempt at sound than any real vocalization, a vibration that starts at his cock and settles in his bones. 

“Come on,” David is surprised he has words left. He moves his hands out of Jake’s way, settles them on the back of Jake’s head with a nudge and Jake takes up a frantic pace on David’s cock.

David doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

His eyes slip closed as he comes. 

Jake swallows, but it hardly matters. When David blinks his eyes back open, Jake’s face is a mess of dripping spit. Jake wipes his face off on the side of his arm. David gives in to his shaky legs and slides down the wall to sit on the floor. He pulls Jake forward, until he collapses onto David.

David doesn’t know how long they sit like that, sated and warm, surrounded by Jake. But eventually, Jake’s patience runs out, he whines, “David, please.”

“Yeah, okay.” David lets go of Jake, nudges him up instead.

Jake puts a hand on the wall behind David to steady himself as he stands. David’s still a little wobbly himself as he gets his knees under him, reaches out to get Jake out of his pants but Jake’s beat him too it. 

His cock is hard and already has moisture beading up at the tip. “I’ll be quick,” Jake says as David swipes at it. Another drop beads up to replace the one David wiped away. “Please.”

David leans forward to lick this one away. It’s humbling, seeing Jake this worked up just from getting David off. David can’t think about it too much, can only try to be worthy of this gift Jake gives him, stops teasing, and gets his mouth around Jake’s cock.

Jake wasn’t kidding about how close he was, the barely controlled twitches of his hips uncoordinated and desperate are no help in setting a rhythm. David wraps one hand around to grab on to the meat of Jake’s ass, and sets up a fast pace, hand and mouth moving in tandem on Jake’s cock. 

And in barely any time at all, Jake is coming too.

Eventually, they pull apart. David gets up and pulls his pants back on. Jake abandons his entirely. “You don’t have to get dressed again,” Jake says. “You’re just going to take them off to shower and put on something clean anyway. You can show me to your bedroom without pants.”

David wrinkles his face, showing what he thinks about that idea.

Clean and dressed in fresh clothes, David gives Jake a tour of the house. They start upstairs, since they’re already there. David got his bedroom and bathroom in functional, if not decorated, order. All the other bedrooms are empty white boxes. David guesses he should get guest beds for them, although he can’t imagine having too many guests any time soon.

Jake has another idea. “Maybe they’ll give you a rookie.”

“That joke wasn’t funny the first two times I heard it.” David is beginning to worry everyone’s not joking. 

Oleg was the first to mention it, when David dragged him to look at the house early on in the process. Oleg has bought and sold enough places to know whether something is both livable and a good investment.

David almost changed his mind on the house there and then, good investment be damned. But Oleg backed off, promising no one would force him to take a rookie in, even if Oleg meant to be a good thing, a compliment.

Kiro didn’t even need to see the house to give David shit about it.

“Not joking, but okay,” Jake says. “You’re good at the things kids struggle with.”

“Hockey?” David asks.

Jake rolls his eyes. “You don’t need me to tell you you’re good at hockey,” Jake says. “I mean, all the other stuff. Grocery shopping and laundry and showing up on time.”

“I get paid millions of dollars to do my favorite thing in the world. Why wouldn’t I show up on time?”

“I’m not your favorite thing in the world to do?” Jake asks.

“You’re a close second,” David says.

“I guess that will do,” Jake says. “So, what’s your plans for all these rooms?”

“Oleg promised his daughters they’d come back next summer to visit their friends.” Sometime right around the point David stopped considering Oleg’s daughters monsters, Oleg started referring to them that way. David doesn’t really get it. They’re practically people now, with thoughts and opinions and things. And one of the opinions David shares with them is that the Kurmazov’s should leave DC. David knows better than to side with the girls against their parents. But, David was willing to be recruited into their ‘come back and visit as often as possible’ cause. 

“His daughter’s, right,” Jake says.

“Also, maybe I want Oleg to come and visit,” David admits. 

“Makes sense,” Jake agrees mildly, before they move downstairs to see the rest of the house.

David was hoping Jake would be able to help him get the house sorted while he was here. Jake’s done it twice before for his own houses. But that’s not really the way it works out. 

Jake admits that his houses are a combination professional decorator, his mom, and Allie and Nat. 

Instead, their next two days become christening every room in David’s house, interspersed with workouts and ordering things online.

Jake’s helpfulness is limited to ordering shower curtains for the remaining bathrooms, with the later admission that it was so they could have sex in all of them too, some new kitchen gadgets, and a recommendation for a surround sound system.

David wakes up hungry after a mid-afternoon nap and can’t find anything he wants to eat in his fridge. So groceries it is. Jake isn’t far behind David, stumbling downstairs still rumpled from their pre-nap activities in nothing but a pair of basketball shorts. David would complain about Jake’s refusal to put on clothes in his house, except he likes the view.

“We’re going to have to go out for dinner. We’re running low on food,” David tells him as Jake begins the same banging around in the cabinets that David just finished. “I’m ordering more.”

“Let me see,” Jake says, sitting down across the table from David with a package of jerky that David’s not sure why he owns.

David slides the laptop over to him and Jake starts clicking around. “Don’t get too much. We’re only here through Sunday.”

Jake waves him off with vague agreement and a request to figure out where they’re going for dinner.

Robbie calls Friday afternoon, waking David up from another nap, and tells David he’s coming over to see his new place, he’ll bring wings, don’t complain, Robbie doesn’t care that Jake is there, he’s only in town for a few days between Boston and David’s not sure where Robbie’s off to. Or maybe it’s the other way around and Robbie’s on his way to Boston from who knows where. David’s not really sure why Robbie’s in town at all in the middle of the off-season, but Robbie’s hung up before David can refuse his presence or get any answers out of him.

David gets cleaned and dressed before searching out Jake to let him know they’ll have company. Jake’s in the kitchen putting away the grocery delivery.

So, it’s not a surprise when his doorbell rings later. What is a surprise, is that Robbie has Georgie with him.

Things between them had been better, and then Robbie started dating some guy mid-last season and things had gotten weird again. They faked it for team things, but not well enough that David didn’t notice, which means there’s no way they’d be hanging out together for the hell of it. But Robbie don’t let David get a word in edgewise to ask.

“Hey, nice place you got here,” Robbie says, “I brought wings,” and instead of the little styrofoam carton David knows, the dozen order of wings comes in, Robbie deposits a giant aluminum chafing tray in his arms. Then, nonsensically since David’s now holding a party’s worth of wings, Robbie says, “Come on, give me the tour. I want to see the place.”

“Hey,” Georgie says to David as Robbie moves out of the way. “I brought beer, lager right?”

“Uh, thanks,” David says, confused about what’s going on.

“Hey, Georgie, bring the beer in here,” Jake calls out and Georgie follows the sound of Jake’s voice to the kitchen.

David, with an arm full of food, figures that’s as good a place as any to go. So he follows. He finds Jake and Georgie doing one of those complicated bro-hugs when he puts the tray of wings down.

“You need to give me a tour of this place,” Robbie says.

David looks suspiciously at Jake and Georgie.

“Go ahead, I’ve seen it,” Jake says.

David is not amused. But he’ll come back to that when Robbie’s not pulling him out of the room for some grand tour.

The townhouse is tall and narrow, and Dave’s new assistant complimented the historical details when she was there to let the inspector in, while David was on a road trip, so David guesses it has those. There’s a half-flight of steps up to the front door, so the first floor is up from street level. The kitchen is in the back of the house, so they’ve already seen most of it on their way to deposit the food. David’s old couch is sitting in the front room. There’s a second, middle room that can either be set up as a dining room or a living room. David is actually thinking of skipping either of those and putting in a pool table. There’s plenty of room to eat in the kitchen, and maybe he can get the guys to change from video games to pool on their down-time and he could actually win a game. He doesn’t mention that. The last thing he wants is Robbie coming back from summer break a pool shark.

They head downstairs after that. Since the first floor is up, the basement is actually garden level. It’s pretty empty down there, and David sketches out his plans to set up a gym. 

They go back up to the main floor, and then up again to upstairs. “It’s just a lot of bedrooms up here,” David tells Robbie, as they walk into the smallest empty bedroom.

“We can end the tour here,” Robbie says. “I don’t need to see where you and Jake have been holed up fucking all week.”

David’s been told he has a very good poker face, so he’s not sure what his face is doing that makes Robbie look at him like that. “What, the couch? Hurry up and buy some more furniture. I can’t sit there now.”

David doesn’t say anything.

“Please say not the table at least. I want to eat those wings.”

They’ve fucked in the kitchen, but not there, so David can honestly say, “No, not the table.”

“You should give your best bud the deets,” Robbie says.

“I don’t know why you think I need to tell Kiro about this.”.

“You wound me,” Robbie says. But as if summoned, the doorbell rings. Jake beats David to it, so David and Robbie are still heading down the stairs when they find Kiro and then Emily hugging Jake hello.

“Hey Kiro,” David says, alerting Kiro to his presence.

“Davidson!” Kiro says, turning in his direction, and meeting him at the bottom of the stairs to envelop him in a hug.

“What are you doing here?”

“We have a layover.”

“Weren’t you going to New York?” David says. They’re getting started with Slava for summer torture next week. “Did you change when you’re going home to Russia?”

“We going to Boston to see Emily’s family,” Kiro tells him.

“You have a layover in DC between Florida and Boston?” Even David isn’t gullible enough for that lie.

But Kiro ignores the question on the end of David’s statement. “Yes, very far.”

“And we brought cookies,” Emily says, holding out a bakery box.

“I guess they can go in the kitchen,” David says.

In addition to the beer and wings that came with Robbie and Georgie, David’s table now also has a giant platter of nacho taco salad. “I’m assuming this is your doing,” David looks at Jake. Giant salads are his specialty.

“I was making it when these guys showed up,” Jake says. David assumes the stack of paper plates came from Jake too, although David doesn’t remember owning any. 

“I guess everyone should help themselves to dinner,” David says. David is hungry, which is why Jake was cooking. Maybe this will make more sense once he’s eaten. Though he doubts it.

After filling his plate David grabs a beer and makes his way to the living room. David takes a place on the couch, and scoots the coffee table closer so he can put his plate on it.

Jake follows and takes the seat next to David. Robbie is the next in, looks at the couch, and turns to Emily. “The pregnant lady gets couch dibs. I’ll go bring in a chair from the kitchen to sit on.”

So Emily joins them on the couch. The rest of the guys are out of luck, leaving their plates on the coffee table so their hands are free to drag chairs in. Everyone settles in to eat and chat, talking about what they’ve been up to so far this summer. David doesn’t say much, content to listen.

Kiro comes back from the kitchen with a second beer for David since his first is empty. David has to reach across the coffee table to grab it and when he sits back again he settles automatically against Jake. Jake puts his arm around David’s shoulders, and suddenly David freezes, realizing what he did, how much they’re touching pressed together lazily on his couch the same way they sit when no one else is there. David knows it was habit, not intentional pushing by the way that Jake startles. 

David knows that if he pulls away, Jake will let him go. He’ll be smooth and play it off as natural and no one will notice anything, helped along by everyone but Emily being several drinks in. But if there’s anywhere where this is okay, it’s here. He’s not sure what everyone’s doing at his house, but it’s not terrible to be surrounded by friends in a place of his own. So he relaxes, lets himself settle casually against Jake.

The doorbell rings again a while later, when they’ve moved on to demolishing the cookies that Kiro and Emily brought with them. David gets up to get it and it’s Dave. 

“Hey, sorry it’s late. Traffic was a bitch,” Dave says.

“What are you doing here?” It comes out before David’s thought about it and he cringes at how rude it was.

“We drove down for a long weekend. Tomorrow we’re taking the kids to the Smithsonian. So I figured I’d come by and see the place.”

“Oh. Um. Come on in.” He steps out of the way, and lets Daveinto his foyer.

Dave takes off his shoes. “Also, I have something for you,” Dave says, handing over a business card. David looks down at it. “They’re an interior design firm. Someone will be calling you to set up an appointment to come see the place. I’ve booked it for you this summer so you can come back to a finished place at the start of the season.” 

“Thanks,” David says, because responding to Dave’s gift is the easiest thing to focus on. David leads Dave into the sitting room. “A bunch of people are here. There’s beer in the kitchen, and there might be some cookies left.” 

Everyone looks up to greet the newcomer, and David doesn’t want to abandon Dave to his friends but now his phone is ringing. Jake’s getting up to show Dave where the beer is, so David steps back into the foyer to answer it.

“Hello?” David says, because the screen is saying it’s Oleg but it’s the middle of the night in Russia.

The phone was right. “Hello,” Oleg says.

“Is everything okay?” David asks because he can’t think of a good reason why Oleg would be calling in at whatever hour this is. “It’s late there.”

“Yes, yes,” Oleg says. “Everything is good. Jake told me to call now. Say ‘Happy Housewarming’ since I couldn’t be at the party.”

“Oh, the party, right.” Well, David feels like an idiot. It’s incredibly obvious now. “Hold on a sec,” David says, and covers the phone with his spare hand so he can shout “Jake,” in the direction of the kitchen.

Jake emerges, looking sheepish.

“Oleg is on the phone apologizing he couldn’t make it to the housewarming party.”

“Surprise?” Jake says, but it’s not the ‘surprise’ of someone enthusiastically jumping out from behind furniture. It’s the surprise of someone who knows they’re in the dog house.

“Hold that thought,” David tells Jake.

David brings the phone back up to his ear. “Hey Oleg, sorry about that. Thanks for calling.”

“No problem. I’m going to sleep now. It’s the middle of the night.”

“Right,” David says. Then, “Why didn’t you just tell him ‘no.’ Everyone is scared of you.” 

“Because I want you to have a happy housewarming.”

“Oh. Well, thanks,” David says again. “Have a good night.”

“You too,” and Oleg promptly hangs up.

David looks up at Jake, who’s waiting right where David left him. “Don’t do it again.” As a rule, David doesn’t like surprises. Even if this one wasn’t terrible, he doesn’t want Jake to get any ideas.

“Okay,” Jake agrees amicably. “Let’s go back and enjoy the rest of your party.” 

He doesn’t not look repentant enough for David’s liking. In fact, he doesn’t look repentant at all. Instead he’s more like the canary that got the cream. David’s never really understood making someone sleep on the couch. That would be a punishment for him as much as it would be for Jake.

So instead, he glowers and says, “You’re cleaning up.”

“Sure babe,” Jake says. “I’ll do the clean up.”

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been forever (if ever) that I’ve written in a constantly updating cannon. When I started this David wasn’t even finished. I don’t think there’s been anything major, but if you catch anything that’s been jossed, ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> At the frustrating 3/4 point, I almost deleted all the porn because their narration from David’s POV is wildly OOC. But then I didn’t because at least half the point of fic is to give us the porn that cannon denies us. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> The two houses Jake owns are canonical, from http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/123936821056/weird-question-but-how-many-homes-do-most-of-the.
> 
> Googling real estate for fic purposes is no lie one of my favorite things.
> 
> Jake’s Florida house is vaguely this one, but bigger and with different furniture and a slightly less confusing layout: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/251-W-Tropical-Way-Plantation-FL-33317/43165863_zpid/ 
> 
> There’s still a living room/sitting area and dining room to the left of the entry and the kitchen roughly straight ahead, but there’s no weird breakfast nook, instead that area merges with where the leather couch is and there’s one big den/living space with big leather couches and a TV/gaming set up. The outside area by the pool is also bigger.
> 
> As far as I can tell all the waterfront property in Michigan along Lake Erie is built up as suburbs and there’s no vacation cabins to be found. But if we’re pretending, these both work as platonic ideal cabins:
> 
> http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4521-Cold-Creek-Blvd-Lake-MI-48632/126968401_zpid/
> 
> http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9215-Silver-River-Loop-Eagle-Harbor-MI-49950/106417012_zpid/
> 
> David’s house is pretty much this: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1337-Vermont-Ave-NW-Washington-DC-20005/406066_zpid/ except he doesn’t own any art or furniture yet and you get to the basement through interior stairs.
> 
> I know nothing about boats or fishing, but hockey players seem to like them. Everything I know about passport control while boating on the Great Lakes comes from the top google result:
> 
> http://www.glcclub.com/boating-and-uscanada-border
> 
> The only reason I thought of this was because of that article that went viral this summer about the Canadian coast guard (or border patrol or whatever) rescuing drunk Americans that accidentally floated into Canadian water on inner tubes.
> 
> It’s killing me that we don’t know who the cup winners are from 2016-2020. At least one is Montreal and one is Washington. In 2017 the ECQF were Montreal vs. Washington, so it’s fun (ymmv) to think about all the bad feelings between Marc and David when they then click at Olympic camp that summer. (It seems likely that Adam was also a cup winner by/around then. Pit won in ’09, but it’s unclear if Adam made the team right out of his draft year. But it seems incredibly likely he would have been on the ’12 winning team.)
> 
> Assuming I understand the rules right, David would be able to re-sign with Washington as soon as July 1, 2020. Let’s assume there’s some wink-wink, nudge-nudge agreement beforehand that makes him starting the house buying process a few months before that make more sense. I can’t imagine him wanting to leave. Washington pays him what he’s worth, he likes the guys he’s playing with. They’ve (almost certainly) won a cup together. He doesn’t have somewhere else that he considers home that he’d want to go back to. And I can’t imagine Washington not wanting to keep him. Teams tend not to let superstars go like that (unless your GM is Peter Chiarelli.)
> 
> This assumes Oleg retires at the end of ’20, and takes his family back to Russia. He’s be 38. I have no idea how common it would be to do this. His daughters (I can’t figure out if he has two or three) would be teenagers and they’ve never lived anywhere but the US, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Words in the English language that contain “meow”: meow, meowed, meowing, homeowner
> 
> And to end, a piece cut out of the end of 2018:
> 
> Since he’s in New York anyway, the Capitols sends David to the NHL media day. When asked about the offseason and those fishing pictures, Jake says that he and David are friends. David says that grocery delivery is a much more efficient way to get dinner.


End file.
